


It Might Have Happened Like That (The Relic AU)

by mareebird



Category: Loki - Fandom, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brodinsons, Chocolate, Confused Loki (Marvel), Cute, Dad!Loki, F/M, Fluff, Funny, Gen, Hugs, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Gets a Hug, Loki and children, Loki teaches a class, Loki's back injury, Period trope, Pregnancy, Scars, Staves, Your teeth might hurt, first-time parents, lady times
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2020-08-13 21:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20180812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareebird/pseuds/mareebird
Summary: A collection of short one-shots set in the universe of my novel-length fic, The Relic.  Mostly fluff.  Occasional angst.





	1. Out of Tune with the Tides

**Author's Note:**

> The following stories don't actually happen.
> 
> Or maybe they do.
> 
> Essentially, these are moments I came up with that did not fit in my long-form fanfic, [The Relic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16022102/chapters/37392101), but still center on the same characters. It's mostly fluff and comedy that didn't fit into the story, which is more serious.
> 
> If you have not read [The Relic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16022102/chapters/37392101), none of this will make much sense, but feel free to read anyway. :)

“Would either of you mind if I stopped at Vitus?”

Neither Loki nor Thor had any idea what Cora meant.

“Vitus?” asked Thor.

She appeared distracted, thought Loki -- so distracted that it apparently slipped her mind to actually answer Thor, but for Loki’s part, he was more invested in watching the sunrise through the car window, anyway. It was late-October, but it seemed Norway had completely bypassed autumn and was marching steadily toward winter. Soon, the sun would hardly rise at all. Cora, in her academic yet _ consternatingly _charming manner, loved to rattle off scientific information about the atmospheric quirks of life so close to the Arctic Circle.

Not now, of course. Right now she was a bit too quiet. She had been off all morning.

But the polar night was encroaching upon them, set to arrive in a matter of weeks, and Loki wondered if he might end up lingering in Norway long enough to witness the “Usurpation of The Moon,” as he had begun to call it. Without fail, Cora giggled every time, which Loki rather liked, more than was wise. It felt like an indulgence he could not afford.

They were on better footing these days, the two of them.

He wondered what it was like this far north during the warmer months. Did spring truly exist, or did Norway have naught but two seasons: daytime and nighttime?

They were _ en route _ back to Seine after having spent the morning hours combing through yet another church with nothing to show for their efforts. Everyone was stiff. They had been driving for roughly an hour and still had a half or so left when she took an abrupt exit. Neither Loki nor Thor still had any notion of what Vitus was.

It turned out to be a pharmacy. In America, Loki had taken to the custom of calling them _ drug stores, _but in Norway it was an _ apotek_. They sold everything related to medicine, cosmetics, and deodorization: things one kept hidden in a bathroom. Vitus had the look of a large-scale chain where the stores remained open twenty-four hours a day. In Seine, all they had was a corner _ shoppe _ that was closed two days a week and, it being Monday, today was one of them. Whatever Cora needed, apparently it could not wait until tomorrow.

Loki’s curiosity was instantly piqued.

He leaned toward the windshield, eyes narrowing on the electric doors as they slid open and closed, concealing Cora inside. “What do you suppose she’s getting in there?”

For all he had come to learn about her in the past few days, the woman remained shrouded in mystery. Dashing into a pharmacy was not particularly nefarious, but it had been more than a little sudden.

“Hm?” sounded Thor.

Loki looked back and saw that his brother was curled over a well-worn textbook, one of his many guides in the quest for _ the relic _ he had undertaken, and they alongside him. They had become, it seemed, a team.

“What do you think she needs?” Loki repeated.

Thor lifted an eyebrow. His gaze lifted to the sign on the store and returned to Loki. “Are you truly asking for theories on what Cora might be buying from a drug store?”

“Well, yes,” said Loki, but he could see he Thor was not going to humor him and he settled back into his seat. Perhaps he was simply bored. The _ church search _ was growing repetitive, in the sense that they never came up with anything. It was not his fault that his mind so craved occupation.

Cora reappeared and soon she was in the car, bearing a small shopping bag which she stowed beneath her chair, though there was little space for it, what with the pedals and all. Whatever she had purchased, placing it too close to himself or his brother apparently carried some manner of risk! Secrets!

What did the French say? _ J’accuse! _

Norns, he _ was _ bored, wasn’t he? And just a bit giddy.

But it was not as if the bag could be properly stowed where it was and, as Cora made a tight turn back onto the highway, Loki _ did _catch sight of what was inside.

Things women needed. Feminine Hygiene, as it waa labeled in the drug stores.

_ Oh. _

He went back to looking out the window.

But he had been gazing toward the horizon for only a few minutes when Cora tapped him on the shoulder. “Would you mind digging through the glove compartment for a bottle of Brufen?” she asked. “Should be there.”

Loki’s forehead wrinkled. Glove compartment? Brufen?

It helped that she was pointing toward the little door in front of Loki’s knees. He had been calling it the _ car locker._

It was glove compartment. Duly noted.

He opened it and poked around until he found a bottle that, by its rattling, sounded to be full of pills. It was the only bottle of anything to be found. With his brow still knit, he passed it to Cora, who managed to open it herself while driving, pop few into her mouth and chase it with cold coffee. Loki watched with interest and just a hint of disgust.

“Painkillers,” she explained, even though no one had asked. Thor was still enraptured with his book. Loki could have whipped the pill bottle at his head and he would not have flinched.

But analgesics? Why would Cora need analgesics?

She passed the bottle back to Loki, who tossed it into the glove compartment from whence it came. “I thought you were immune to pain.”

Cora laughed. There was a maniacal edge to it. “Ha! Oh, no. No. I most definitely feel pain. It hurts when I get hurt _ and _when my body puts itself back together. It just doesn’t last all that long, fortunately.”

Loki’s scowl deepened. How gruesome! He had assumed that, when Cora told them of her inability to be killed, that pain was likewise difficult to inflict and rarely endured.

Had she injured herself in the stave without his noticing? Bumped her head on a low beam, perhaps? She was not, in his esteem, prone to being clumsy. In fact, Loki would have described her as rather graceful.

"When were you hurt?" he asked, and watched Cora clench her jaw in response. She turned a corner. The question hung.

Loki suddenly felt itchy, like a child awaiting a stern response over words he might have considered more carefully.

“How do I put this?” she said, after reaching a point when it seemed she might not answer Loki’s question at all. “There are times when...as a woman...you are in pain for reasons that have nothing to with being injured.”

_ As a woman…? _

Loki turned away for a moment. And then he turned back. “It hurts?”

Cora bobbed her head.

“I didn’t know it hurt," he said.

Or had he just forgotten? His formal education had been the finest in any realm, but anatomy and sexual matters had never been his chief interest, not unless the knowledge was practicable.

She was looking at him from the corner of her eye, her lips folded between her teeth. Loki felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle. He glanced at Thor, who had finally lifted his eyes from his book and was regarding Loki with shocked dismay.

Thor knew?

Norns, it was basic information, wasn’t it? He _ should _have been aware that it hurt.

Now he was the idiot in the car.

Well, it was Cora’s fault, really. She had volunteered the information. It was not as though he had asked why she was taking analgesics to expose the facets of the female reproductive cycle. No, he had been concerned that she may have actually injured herself.

Loki shifted his weight in his seat.

Cora, who had been peering at him from the corner of her eye, gave an abrupt shrug. “Does it not hurt on Asgard? For Asgardian women, I mean.”

His lips parted. Was she giving him an out? A reasonable and kind excuse to remove his foot from his mouth?

“Probably not as much as it would for a...a human.” Though they were trying to prove Cora wasn’t human, either. It was possible he had just succeeded in widening his mouth and pushing the other foot inside. Dammit.

Thor piped up from the back. “Haven’t you gone in disguise as a woman, Loki?”

Loki twisted around and shot his brother a daggered glare. “Never for an extended length of time. I don’t even know if _ it _would happen.”

He turned from Thor and narrowed his eyes on the road before them. No one said anything for a bit.

Perhaps if he offered more concern? If he was going to be the stupid one this morning, he might as well display a desire to learn.

“Will the analgesics take care of the pain?”

Cora squinted. She had called them _ painkillers. _It probably would take a moment to register, or perhaps she stalled because she felt he was prying. Or was it possible she was in more pain than he realized?

Loki continued to frown. He did not...he did not like the idea of Cora in discomfort. It had to be worse than she was letting on, or she would not need pills for it, and she had been out of sorts all morning. There were even dark circles beneath her pretty eyes.

Loki looked down at his hands and scowled at them.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, as though she knew his mind. “Women don’t give it a second thought. It’s just part of how it is. Though it’s a bit unfair since I should have gone through menopause a century ago.”

Was he supposed to chuckle at that? Loki look at Cora and saw that she was smiling a bit devilishly at him. His chest gave an involuntary squeeze. 

“I mean, talk about a curse,” she said. “And it’s an expense, too. I ought to be a spokeswoman. ‘Over a hundred years old? Still getting your period? It's horrible, right! Have I got the tampon for you.’”

Loki’s brows went high. Had she truly just said something so ridiculous?

Cora cleared her throat. “Or for birth control, I guess. ‘Old enough to be a great-great grandmother? Watch out! You could still end up pregnant!’”

Loki choked as he gave over to laughter in spite of himself. Was she attempting to make him feel less stupid? "Oh, hell…” he gasped, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Cora smirked like she had beaten him at a game, her chin high, her chest puffed out.

Norns, she was...she was a bit fantastic.

* * *

“Where the Nine have I left my phone!”

Loki stomped to the center of the room, as intimidatingly as he could manage in his purple socks. His fists were pressed against his hips as he glowered at nothing specifically. He was simply glaring at the entire apartment.

Thor was at the kitchen table, where he was eating the leftovers of last night’s dinner. “Since when do you lose things?”

Loki threw up his hands. “It’s these damned Midgardian pockets! Everything slips out.”

He was not having a terrific day. First, there had been his clueless faux pas in the car and now he was apparently losing his mind. He had only been searching for his phone for five minutes and already he was convinced it was lost forever. Had he dropped it in the stave? Wouldn’t it have clattered? What about the graveyard? The soft earth probably loved to gobble up phones the same way it gobbled up people.

But it didn’t make sense to store a phone in a pocket dimension, where it would actually be safe. One needed it too often. It was a waste of energy to conjure it and hide it and conjure it again. And the reception was lousy in the spaces between realms, anyway.

Loki sighed and checked under the couch. Again.

Humans did not know how to make proper pants. That was the real problem. If his pockets had been constructed the _ correct _ way, with leather edging, things would not slip out of them so easily. Once he found his phone, Loki was going to make some alterations to his Midgardian wardrobe, that was for certain.

Was it in Cora’s car? Could he have lost it there?

“Would you like me to call it?” asked Thor, taking up his own phone from the table.

“Yes, please,” Loki said with an air of defeat.

Thor tapped in the number. Loki held his breath.

_ Bzzzt! Bzzzt! _

In one uniform movement, like a pair of meerkats, they turned to face the door, where the coats were hung.

“You’re losing it, Loki.”

“I _ looked _ in my coat…”

Loki stomped and mostly slid across the room, stalking the buzzing sound like a clumsy cat. Damn his Midgardian socks, too.

His eyes narrowed on his coat and Loki swore, on the flea-bitten soul of Odin, that if his phone turned up in one of the pockets, then he was going to give up on Midgardian clothing altogether and wear his Asgardian garb for the remainder of the trip.

_ Bzzzt! Bzzzt! _

...It was not in the pockets.

Then where the hell...?

Loki looked down at his feet.

“Are you okay?” Thor asked, as Loki dropped to his knees.

“It was in my damned boot!” Loki popped back up, whipping his hair around like some form of tattered victory flag. “How did it fall in there?”

“No, I mean you appear to be...on edge.”

Loki huffed and shuffled into the bathroom. “I just need to look up something.”

* * *

It was around noon when Loki excused himself to take a walk. Thor seemed eager to get him out of the house. (_ “Yes. By all means. Please!” _) Even Loki was willing to admit that he was causing too much noise, bouncing from place to place in the apartment the same way his thoughts seemed to be ricocheting off the inside of his skull. He felt as though he had drunk some of Thor’s overly-strong, black coffee, but he hadn’t, of course, because it was disgusting.

Usually, it was Loki begging Thor for a little peace around their living quarters. Now it was Thor who was reading, working, pouring over textbooks and maps, and Loki had become the brother with too much energy and a need to expel it.

Taking a walk was perfectly logical. And the distance between the apartment and Cora’s cafe would provide a good stretch of exercise. Why Loki might even feel calm by the time he arrived.

But he seriously doubted it. Taking a walk was a mistake and Loki knew it. 

He took a breath of the cold, salty air and started off with anxious yet foolhardy ambition toward his mistake.

Toward Cora’s cafe.

* * *

The cafe was so small that the walls could not fit more than a single window. Loki squinted inside and courted the idea of turning around and forgetting _ all _ of this, and furthermore purging the memory of ever considering it in the first place. Perhaps he’d march himself right off the archipelago and solve a few of his problems at once.

But Cora caught sight of him too quickly, peaking over the head of a short patron as they exchanged coffee and currency. She lifted an eyebrow before waving, a motion that combined confusion and beckoning him inside to explain himself.

Loki sighed. This was an elaborate mousetrap that he had set for himself, wasn’t it? He was supposed to be smarter than this.

He entered the cafe.

“Loki. Hi. Don’t tell me you’re here for coffee.”

He held the door for the patron as they passed. “No, no… Just out for a jaunt. Tramping about town.”

Jaunt? Tramping? Even Cora seemed embarrassed for him, as her eyes betrayed her with a subtle squint.

Loki clasped his hands behind his back as he approached the counter. Cora had changed her clothes, perhaps she had also showered. She looked...fresh. Makeup disguised the circles beneath her eyes, or at least they seemed to have faded. She smelled floral. He could smell whatever it was, perfume or shampoo, over the pungent odor of the coffee.

“Do you want something else?” she asked. “Tea?”

“No, I…” Loki clenched his fists with a death grip. It was not too late. He didn’t_have _ to spring the mousetrap. “I don’t need anything. Thank you.”

“Oh. Just here to say hello, then?”

“I suppose.”

Cora brandished a lopsided, incredulous smile as she turned to her espresso machine and cleaned off the...metal stick that heated the milk. Loki did not know what it was called, but it made a horrible screech when it was turned on. She held his gaze. It was clear that she did not quite believe him. Loki rolled his eyes. At himself.

_ Oh, just get on with it. __You’re no coward. _After all, he only wanted a little bit of redemption after consorting with idiocy in the car.

Loki was certain that was the only reason why he was here.

“Actually… I thought you might like this.” Loki released his hands and, as he brought them forward, a shimmer of light bloomed. He passed Cora the thing he thought she might like.

It was a chocolate bar.

Her brow tightened. The writing was in Russian, so Loki was not certain if she could immediately recognize it for what it was. He had collected candy from across Midgard, from across the universe, actually. Midgard had exceptional candy, even Loki had to admit.

He cleared his throat. “I read that it’s a common belief, with some scientific evidence, that chocolate elevates the pain associated with…” Before he had finished, Cora’s face snapped up, her mouth agape, and Loki gave into the need to clear his throat a second time. “...The female, ehm, period.”

Cora looked at the candy as though she would have been less surprised had he presented her with a dead animal. He was a cat bearing strange gifts. She picked it up. “Yes. Yes, that is...that’s true…” 

Loki’s skin felt blisteringly hot. His face had to be the color of roses. He could feel it. “The percentage of cacao is very high,” he went on, though the Norns alone knew how. “So it’s fairly medicinal. You don’t have to eat it, but I thought you might like it, so there it is.”

He went back to clasping his hands behind his back, giving his palm a sharp pinch before the tension inside grew larger than he could endure. If she intended to throw the chocolate back at him, Loki supposed he would have to duck.

Cora’s eyelids fluttered. “You brought me chocolate because you thought it might help me feel better? Because I...” Now it was she who flushed pink.

She wore it far better.

Was she...happy? Had this not been a mistake after all?

“Essentially, yes.” Loki felt a slight tug at his lips as he watched her worked her jaw. “I feel I embarrassed you this morning, bringing attention to it. I should have been better informed.”

“Loki this… this is so _ weirdly sweet_.” Her eyes flashed and Loki’s heart leaped into his throat. It was terribly uncomfortable. He had not come here for pleasure. Absolutely not.

But she had such pretty, clear blue eyes. They were almost crystal. And that they could even remotely sparkle so while turned upon him.

Loki took a step backward, away from her, because he was _ not _ stupid. “I hope you enjoy it.”

Her smile thinned at the sight of them going, or perhaps Loki imagined it.

Cora cleared her throat. “By the way, I never thought there was anything wrong with you not knowing about female things,” she said. “But I am impressed that you cared. Usually, it's something men want to know as little as possible about.”

“Yes, well, I am technically an alien, so…” He continued to back toward the door. “So there’s that.”

Cora’s brows went high. “You are. I keep forgetting.”

“Forgetting?”

She shrugged. “I mean… I don’t know. Nevermind. Come here.”

Come here? Come here, where? Why? But instead of waving Loki closer, Cora walked around the counter and quickly closed up the space between them.

“I know I said I don’t do this, but I’m emotional today.”

She hugged him.

Loki could not call what he did in returned anything resembling an embrace. His arms were firmly pinned at his sides. Norns help him, she smelled like honeysuckle -- that's what flower it was -- and she was warm and she held him so tightly. It lasted for a second, a mere blink. In fact, as she pulled away, Loki realized that his eyes had drifted shut.

He opened them to Cora's bright face, her keen eyes, her glimmer of a smile, as though she knew something about him that he would never fully grasp. But if anything had just dawned on Loki, it was that he was in a deplorable state of wanting to be kissed and caressed and...

He stepped back, touching the door. The light through its window was growing thin, though it was hardly past midday. Ursuption of the moon indeed. He was going mad.

"I hope you feel well, soon," he said.

"I'm sure the chocolate will help. Thank you."

"Have a good afternoon."

"You, too."

Loki closed the door behind him and told himself not to look back over his shoulder and check to see if Cora might still be at the window. And then he did look back, because he was a glutton for punishment. Cora was there, watching him, a curious expression etched over her entire face.

He kept walking, of course.

Norns, he had been very stupid today.


	2. Christmas in Norway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very AU.
> 
> This was written by request when I celebrated 200 Tumblr Followers and gave out some commissions as prizes. If you are reading The Relic, I'm sorry to say it's not Relic canon. It is, however, adorable. At least, I think so. Haha. But I stress, it's as non-canon as any of these AU fics can be.
> 
> \--
> 
> Loki and Cora celebrate a significant first during their second Christmas in Norway.
> 
> ...I mean, it's a baby, you guys. I'll just stop beating around the bush. It's a pregnancy story.

“I’m not going to make it.”

It was very late and very dark and Cora’s gloved fingers fumbled with the keys. Loki watched from behind, frowning, pitying her.

“Here, let me,” he said, calmly reaching for her frantic hands.

“This is the worst,” she said, but otherwise she did not protest and handed over the keyring.

“You’ll make it,” said Loki.

He opened the door and Cora was off like a laser blast, tearing through the dark kitchen and up the stairs, somehow managing not to trip. Loki lingered behind at the entryway, breathing in the sea air, the sweet smell of lingering_ lutefisk, _ and stealing a moment to gaze at the green and gold, not un-Christmassy garland of the aurora borealis.

The sliver of the crescent moon seemed to smile down upon him. Loki smiled back, and then he closed the door.

He did not mind the cold, but it was good to be finally inside. Cora’s squat townhome had grown on him, with its familiar smells and patterns on the walls, providing a kind of warmth unrelated to the temperature. Loki’s tensed muscles gave over to relaxation. They had only been to a neighbor’s _ julebord _party, but it felt like an eternity of answering the same question over and over and over and over:

_ “And what are you doing for Christmas?” _

_ “Oh, nothing much. My brother will be visiting. We’re keeping things low key this year.” _

Loki giggled childishly to himself, thinking about it now. No one in the village knew him by his real name and it was fabulously entertaining to say it again and again, directly to their faces. His anonymity above the Arctic Circle was a delight.

But no, it had been a nice party and he had a nice time. Thinking of Seine as home came so easily whenever he happened to be here, and he suspected that he and Cora would be lingering for quite a while on this visit.

Loki flicked a switch along the wall, lighting not the living room, but the Christmas tree in the corner. The little red bulbs twinkled. The house smelled of coffee and cinnamon and Loki breathed deep. Yes, he even enjoyed the smell of coffee these days.

Aside from Cora upstairs, the night was silent.

The holiday itself was three days away, but the home was rather bare compared to the others in Cora’s tiny development, with the exception of the tree. That had been Loki’s project. Cora had managed to put out several red-capped _ nisse _gnomes, which were a decidedly unique Norwegian staple, but she was not really up for decorating. It was a shame. She loved to do it. Last year, for Loki’s first Christmas, the two of them had gone absolutely wild with the decorating.

Of course, Loki could have covered the house with lights and garland in an instant. Indeed, he had tried, but it only made Cora cry about how “lazy” she felt, and so it had all come down as quickly as it went up.

Loki hung his coat and took off his boots and put on the kettle. He was in the mood for cocoa. And he suspected Cora would have honey and lemon so he took those out, as well, working by the light of the oven hood. It was not long before Cora reappeared at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, signaling her entry with a loud sigh.

“That sounded rather rough,” said Loki.

“Whoever decided to call this _ morning sickness _ must never have been pregnant.”

“It’s 2 AM,” he replied dryly, as he pulled two mugs from the cabinet. ”It _is_ morning.”

Cora shot a glare at him, but the smirk on her lips betrayed her. She shuffled across the kitchen to his side, his arm already outstretched to pull her close.

“You were magnificent, tonight, by the way,” he said, continuing to prepare the drinks with his free hand. “An absolute soldier. Had I not personally been present for the conception of our child, you would have fooled even me.”

Cora snorted, ducking her head against his chest, and Loki awarded himself a point. He had never lost the habit of counting each peal of laughter as a personal victory, even though Cora laughed quite easily. They were moments that belonged to him.

He pressed a kiss to her temple, which was still a bit clammy from her ordeal upstairs, but it did not bother him. “Carrying around that glass of wine all night?” he murmured against her skin. “What genius!”

She chuckled again and tilted back to meet his eye. “Yes, well, I’ll be relieved when we can be upfront about it and I can stop deflecting with wine and stinky cheese.”

“A few weeks?” Loki said, pressing his lips to her forehead.

Between them, he felt Cora lift her hand and slip it over her belly. She fiddled with the fabric of her sweater in that way of hers that belighed some passing anxiety. Without hesitation, like a well-oiled cog, he slipped his hand beneath hers, separating her from the fraying fibers of her clothing.

“A few weeks,” Cora echoed.

If they could keep their secret for that long. Her figure was beginning to round off. Cora said that he was imagining things, that it was too early to see a change, but Loki was certain. No, they would not be able to keep this to themselves for much longer. He even doubted they would be able to conceal it from Thor, once he arrived.

The kettle began to whistle, but Loki was in no hurry to move.

They had only known about the baby for a week. They ought to have realized much sooner, rather embarrassingly. It was Cora’s nausea that ultimately tipped them off. She was never sick and then suddenly she was sick all the time. She chalked up missing the more obvious signals due to the holiday tourism boom. Suddenly, they were nine weeks weeks along and no one in all the universe knew but themselves. Well, with the exception of the doctor they had visited, but doctors were a given and thus they did not count.

Although sometimes Loki would take out the black-and-white photograph the doctor had given and just _ stare _ at it, marveling at his little bean-shaped progeny.

Cora gently nudged her shoulder against his chest and with a quick hand, she killed the flame beneath the kettle and poured water into their mugs. The two of them made quiet work of preparing their drinks. Loki stirred cocoa into his. Cora, as expected, dissolved honey and lemon.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s pass out by the tree.”

Loki lingered to search for marshmallows. When he turned around, Cora had already seated herself on the sofa. He felt it necessary to take a breath at the sight of her, awash in Christmas lights. The mother of his child. Norns, a week ago they’d had no idea. And for all the blessed peace of this moment, it was not a discovery made without shock and awe.

Cora had been through all of this before, long ago, in what seemed like a previous lifetime to the both of them these days. This was her second child. Her first had long since passed through this universe and even Loki felt haunted by loss, but for Cora it was far more acute. He could sense the sadness that came and went, the grief and longing, and the fear. Bereavement never fully let go of one’s heart, did it? Even joy had ways of tearing open old wounds.

Loki had been tossed about on the sea of his own complicated feelings on the matter: the initial bomblike impact of the discovery, the utter disbelief which followed, and then panic. The truth was that he had been abandoned by one father and raised at an arm’s length by another. He could place Frigga on a pedestal as high as the heavens, but her many virtues had never been able to seal off that chasm.

Not a day had gone by without a moment of panic -- at the beginning of the week, it was nary an hour -- and between the cacophony of fear were odd phases of absolute numbness. In fact, for a full day after learning of the child’s existence, he and Cora did not speak to one another other than to request items around the house, as if they were groping for some semblance of normalcy.

And then, at night, Loki recalled glancing up from a book on which he could hardly concentrate, and spotting Cora standing beside their Christmas tree, bathed in the prettiest twinkling lights, and his frozen heart melted like frost on the windowpane.

“You and I are going to have a baby,” he recalled saying, while Cora adjusted the position of a glass ornament. The words simply fell out of him.

Cora looked over her shoulder, a bit startled. She stared at him for a moment, until her eyes began to glisten, and she slowly brought her hand over the spot where the child was hidden, beneath her sweater and warm winter leggings, deep within her body.

And she smiled at him. “We are.”

Loki was not healed in that moment. Nor was she. He still did not know how to be a father. At times, ge hardly knew how to be himself! Everything inside of him was always so intense. His strangest fear was that he would love this child too intensely, as well, that he would smother him or her with love.

The panic continued to come, for the both of them, but for Loki it was panic wrapped, occasionally, in the most dizzying, rapturous joy. And whenever he caught sight of Cora placing a tender hand on her not-quite-so-flat-as-before belly and saw her smiling, he knew she was being overtaken by the same happiness.

Now, he joined her on the sofa beside the lit tree. The presents wrapped in foil-paper reflected the rosey lights. Everything about Christmas in Norway was flush with red.

Cora lifted her mug to her lips and lowered it to her lap again. Her eyes followed.

“I think you’re right,’ she said. “I am starting to show.”

“I’ve been saying…”

She glanced at him with that same weak attempt at a glare, betrayed by her smile, before resting her head on his shoulder and releasing a sigh. “I’m sure a few people noticed I wasn’t actually drinking my wine.”

“Oh, who cares if they notice,” he breathed into her hair. “I rather like the idea of putting my ardor for you on display.”

She laughed. Loki awarded himself a point as he kissed the crown of her head. “Happy Christmas, Cora.”

He gently slipped a hand over her belly.

“And a Happy First Christmas to you.”


	3. Stave School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor is not exactly on board when Loki conducts an impromptu art class at a Norwegian stave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came at the request of [@reileth](http://www.reileth.tumblr.com), who submitting the following prompt: 
> 
> “I’d like to see Loki interacting with a school trip who turn up at one of the sites he and Thor are visiting. I think maybe he’d enjoy explaining some of the symbolism etc, with bonus points thrown in for magical illustrations when the teacher is not watching!”

Røldal Stave

A Late-October Friday Morning

8:55 AM

They had visited staves and now they were  _ revisiting  _ staves, and Thor felt a bit like a dog chasing his tail. After digging up so much  _ nothing _ , even he was beginning to question his sanity and the amount of effort they were expending to find an Asgardian relic that was leginardily  _ un _ find _ able _ .

And New Asgard was waiting so patiently for his return. Loki was free at last. The longer he lingered on Earth, the more Thor felt that he was shirking his greater responsibilities, even being selfish. And yet, that made returning with the relic all the more important. The thought of going back empty-handed was a shame Thor was not sure he could endure.

If anyone could find it, it was Loki. Thor looked to his brother on the other end of the stave's cavernous _midtrom_. Loki was doing his usual Loki thing, whatever that was, exactly. He would trace his hands along the walls like he was feeling around for a lightswitch in the dark...which...well, Thor supposed that was _exactly _what he was doing, searching for secret gateways. They definitely existed; Loki and Cora had proven that by falling through one of them. Somewhere, maybe not in this stave, but in **_a_** stave, they would find the lost piece of Asgardian history they sought. Thor was certain of it.

He was  _ reasonably  _ certain of it. It was only a matter of time. Hopefully.

Realistically, though, they had to be out of the church by nine o’clock. That was when the Preservation Society came along and opened the doors to the public, or so Cora had warned. She was not with them today. The air between her and Loki was... _ tense _ , and for the time being, she was taking a step back from exploring the staves. Thor hoped the break would not last. She was a hard worker, and a good friend, and he very much wanted to see his brother happy. Loki had been fairly miserable since...whatever it was that had gone so wrong. Thor tried not to ask too many questions.

But it made him sad to know Loki's heart had been trampled.

Either way, Cora had warned them firmly that Røldal’s stave was a tourist attraction and even an active worship site, situated in a well-populated rural community. There would be no margin of error for timing their exit.

Which was why it was very embarrassing when Thor heard the lock click and realized they had lingered too long.

“Shit…” he growled under his breath, his eyes flying to Loki, as Loki’s eyes flew to him.

Loki could disguise himself, either his literal appearance or by wrapping himself up in invisibility like a blanket. Or he could teleport safely beyond the walls of the stave. But Thor was not so gifted. In a panic, he dropped to his knees between the pews, knowing his brother could fend for himself. He would not hold it against Loki for abandoning him. The fewer of them caught, the better.

Hopefully, the attendant from the Preservation Society would simply unlock the door, switch on the lights, and leave.

But what Thor heard was not one pair of footsteps, but many, and the voices of young children. Their chatter and gasps of awe at the sight of the ancient church’s interior floated up through the rafters and when the door closed behind them, Thor realized he was in some degree of trouble.

And wretched embarrassment. This was no place for a king, rolled into a ball on the floor, but Thor hardly felt like the leader of anything these days, let alone the Nine Realms. He was more like a thief about to be caught, and he  _ would  _ be caught; the pew barely concealed him. Soon, perhaps in seconds, he would need to supply the children with some explanation as to why he was there. Or perhaps it would be better to run. The attendant would know he did not belong. If he ran fast enough, they would not be able to catch them.

Thor wondered if he ought to pray to someone for success in his escape.

“ _ God morgen _ , children. Welcome to Røldal Stave Church! Did you have a nice trip? Was it too cold for anyone?”

Thor’s eyes snapped open. His blood ran cold.

The voice. It was Loki’s.

“Who are  _ you? _ ” This voice belonged to a woman, either the attendant or possibly the children’s teacher, Thor surmised. His brain was racing too fast to come up with anyone else, just as he was filled with too much dread to lift himself from the floor and look. 

“I’m Dr. Johan,” replied Loki, without missing a beat. “I’m sorry, was the tour not today? Is this not the class from...Fløgstad?”

“No one informed me that...” The woman’s voice wavered. There was a brief pause, hardly noticeable, but Thor noticed it. She spoke dreamily, “Yes. Dr. Johan. I must have forgotten you were meeting us today.”

Thor felt another chill and grit his teeth against it. He did not have to look to know what Loki was up to. His genius was always tinged with madness. 

“And you are Ms…Gjørv, yes?” asked Loki. “From the Preservation Society?”

But his brother was not really asking at all. Thor knew exactly what was happening. Silvertongue was sweet-talking them, his magic at work, pulling information from the woman’s mind and inserting his own.

Thor had never liked this trick.

But at least Loki was going to get them out of here, he thought, which was more than he could say for himself, as he breathed in dust bunnies.

That was when Thor sneezed. He sneezed a sneeze that only an Asgardian could sneeze. The entire stave shuddered. He was certain his heart momentarily stopped, as well.

Loki sounded entirely nonplussed as he reacted. “And over there you’ll find my intern assistant, Mr. Laksekjønn.”

The children giggled and someone hushed them. Thor felt uneasy and just a bit queasy as he rose to his feet. The giggling stopped when they saw how big he was.

There were about ten children altogether, not quite teenagers, accompanied by a woman -- Ms. Gjørv, was it? -- who was fairly elderly, but she smiled brightly at Thor while Loki played tricks upon her mind, convincing her that they belonged when they did not.

Loki’s grin was impish. “Did you find your lucky  _ krone _ , Laksekjønn?”

The children snickered again, which did not bode well. Thor pretended to look around himself. “No. I did not find my...lucky krone.”

“Ah, that’s too bad. I’m sure it will turn up.” He swiveled back to the children. “Now, where shall we begin our tour? Why not the apse, yes?”

Thor stood very still, watching Loki and the children pass with a sense that the very fabric of reality had been disrupted. The little ones eyed him as they passed, covering their grins with their hands. What in Hel did  _ Laksekjønn  _ mean? Allspeak was useless with surnames.

But what he truly could not grasp was why Loki had not simply used his magic to ensure their escape? Why was he leading everyone deeper into the church? Thor eyed the door at the other end, with its thin sliver of sunlight breaking through beneath. Maybe this was an elaborate distraction and he was meant to escape. Thor stepped into the aisle, debating which way to turn.

“Oh, Mr. Laksekjønn,” Loki sing-songed. “As my assistant, will you mind assisting me for a moment?” He was sincerely enjoying something about this, which made Thor all the more anxious.

Scratching the back of his neck, Thor trudged toward the apse, where the children had circled around a piece of art. Loki was beaming. Thor did not understand. It was not an interesting artwork, it was just a garden. There were not even any people in it.

Loki held court as though he was teaching an actual class. “Now, around the time of the Reformation, most of this church’s religious art was removed and replaced by inoffensive secular art. Can anyone tell me the difference between the two?”

Of all the children who raised their hands, Loki selected a bespectacled little girl. “Secular means there’s no reference to God in it.”

“Yes, that is exactly what it means,” chirped Loki and the girl smiled brightly. “So here we have a garden, but there’s no clue to it being the Garden of Eden. No serpent. No apple tree. No Adam and Eve scrambling to cover themselves with fig leaves.”

The children giggled. Thor could not help but snicker along with them, as something inside him eased. Just a little. His brother had always been good with children, far better than he was himself, And that was probably because Loki had spent so much time with their mother, and far less with their father.

Thor fended off a sad frown.

Loki rambled on. “So even if all we have to look at is a fairly boring collection of trees and bushes, can still appreciate--”

“Dr. Johan!” One of the boys interrupted Loki’s spiel, thrusting his finger in the air. He was pointing toward the painting. “I see a serpent!”

Loki spun around. The motion was highly exaggerated, with his mouth agape and his arms flailing. He nearly knocked a few of the children in the head, except that Loki moved so fluidly over them that it had to have been calculated. “You see a serpent?” he gasped. “Where!”

“There. There!” A few of the other children added their claims to the mix, jutting their fingers toward the painting. Thor turned, as well, narrowing his eyes, but he did not see anything out of the ordinary.

And then he did.

The painting moved.

“There it is again!” the children cried. “In the bushes!”

Thor could scarcely believe what he saw -- not the fact that the painting was moving, because he knew Loki too well. This, however, was especially brazen. A tiny snake poked his head out of the leaves, tasted the air with his tongue, and then disappeared.

Norns.

Thor grabbed one of Loki’s hands. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

But too many questions were coming at once. “Was that real? Is it a screen? Where did the snake go?” As for Mrs. Gjørv -- who was clearly very familiar with the artwork in the stave -- she clutched her chest. The color of her cheeks had drained away.

“I don’t see any snakes,” Loki said with the utmost calm, even if he could not fully disguise the delight pulling at his lips. “I think your eyes must be playing tricks on you.”

“No! We saw it! We saw it!” The children shrieked and giggled.

“Then perhaps we have a minor miracle on our hands.” Loki shrugged. “Shall we move on to the famous depiction of Saint Matthew?”

“Yes…” said Mrs. Gjørv, who had regained her voice. “They moved it to the rear of the church, outside the midtrom.”

Loki chuckled. “Now, who can tell me the story of the repentant tax collector?”

As Loki led the children away from the apse, Thor wondered just when and where and why his brother had learned so much about the Christian Bible. He squinted at the garden, daring the snake to reappear. A stout little boy had lingered beside him, doing the same, but nothing happened. 

They exchanged an incredulous look.

“You saw it, too, right?” Thor asked.

The boy shrugged and scurried away.

Thor dared to touch the painting then, stealing a glance over his shoulder to make sure everyone was distracted. He poked the bushes, half-expecting the leaves to rustle, but the paint was flat and the wood panel behind it was hard. Had he imagined it? Had Loki played so many little tricks on him that now he hallucinated snakes at the slightest provocation?

He sighed and clasped his hands behind his back. He had gotten so little good sleep as of late, Thor would not have been surprised to discover he was dreaming while he was awake. But the children had seen it, had they not? And Mrs. Gjørv had turned white.

Thor turned to join the others.  _ That _ was when he heard a distinct, audible  _ raspberry _ . Pbbbt! He swiveled back. The snake had reappeared, this time wearing Loki’s horned helm. He waggled his body in a taunting, celebratory dance, like a footballer who had scored a point. And then the snake winked.

“HEY!” shouted Thor, though he was relieved to discover he was not completely mad, after all. Loki the Snake flicked its tongue and vanished into the greenery.

Everyone was staring at him when he finally turned around.

“Did it come back?” asked the stout boy. “Did I miss it?” A few of the students began to run toward the apse. Thor held up his hands to halt them.

“Ermmm…. No, no. I...thought I found my lucky krone. That is all.” Never had he seen children look so dejected. It almost disappointed Thor himself to trample their excitement, but he could not go on torturing poor Mrs. Gjørv.

“Children, leave Mr. Laksekjønn be!” shouted Loki, waving them back to where he stood with the painting. Begrudgingly -- though snickering at whatever Thor’s silly name meant -- they obeyed.

He considered pulling out his phone and Googling the term himself. In fact, he did just that.

_ “...Salmon spawning?” _ Thor growled through his teeth.

His head snapped up in time to see a girl throw her fist high into the air. Something between her fingers glittered in the thin light. “Saint Matthew just tossed me a krone!” she exclaimed.

Loki snatched it away. “Mr. Laksekjønn, is this the lucky krone you misplaced?”

Thor felt his eyes bulge out of his skull.

That was it. Time to leave. Now. He pushed through the children, knocking a few of them over. He grabbed Loki by the elbow while Mrs. Gjørv fanned her face. “Dr. Johan and I need to be leaving immediately. Please conduct the rest of the tour quietly amongst yourselves. Have a lovely day.”

Loki was laughing hysterically before they were even outside, but he at least had enough sense to start running. They put distance between themselves and the stave, cutting quick lines through the brisk late-autumn morning. They were down the hill and across the street when jogged to a halt.

“Damn, that was fun,” Loki panted.

“You took it too far.” But even Thor had begun to laugh. His pulse thudded vigorously in his chest and for the first time in days, he felt fully awake. “You almost gave that poor old woman a heart attack.”

Loki waved his hand. “Oh, in a few hours she’ll have convinced herself it was a cheap trick. That’s what humans do.”

“Do you mean that they come up with reasonable explanations, because they are a reasonable people?”

Loki soured at Thor’s smirk. “You know what I meant.”

“Yes, but I don’t like it when you play cruel tricks.”

“I was not being cruel in the slightest. The children did not think it was cruel.”

They had begun to walk down the street in the direction of a small park, where their return portal to Seine was concealed among the prickly evergreen bushes. Thor mulled over how they would arrive at Cora’s cafe decidedly behind schedule. He wondered if they ought to tell her the truth of what had happened. “Why did you bother to do it, though? We were late already.”

Loki shrugged. “Do I need a reason?”   


Thor thought for a moment. “No, but you usually have one.”

Loki did not reply right away. They had arrived at the park and he quietly used his fingers to find the portal’s location. Thor noticed that he was frowning.

“I just needed a bit of a distraction,” Loki sighed.

It was no small thing for his brother to admit, needing something.

Thor frowned along with him. The waves of Loki’s ups and downs had been swift as of late, everything concerning Cora not being the least of it. There were Strange and Ross’s machinations, not to mention the search for the Relic itself. And Thor did not think that living in close quarters was any easier for Loki than it was for him. Sharing a bathroom at their age was enough to end any relationship.

Suddenly, his brother’s little game seemed...fairly harmless. And Loki was right, Mrs. Gjørv probably would write it off as a magician’s trick by the end of the day. “Did it work?” Thor asked.

Loki nodded. “Yes, I enjoyed it very much.” The palm of his hand lit up. He had found the portal.

“Good.”

Loki reached back to take Thor by the elbow and Thor closed his eyes tight. He did not enjoy traveling this way.

“...But  _ salmon spawning _ , Loki? Next time. I pick the names.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Comments make me happy. Check me out on Tumblr @mareebird


	4. Bend and Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So usually I try to make it very clear that these little one-shots are not canon within the Relic universe. However, this one actually pretty much is. Lately, I've been going through Relic and polishing it up a bit. Just making the writing cleaner. But as I've done this, I've developed a couple of scenes that I intend to eventually insert into the story itself. They are just extra moments to punch up the story and the themes and blah blah, if I go into my reasons, I'll sound super academic and begin to annoy myself.
> 
> But I'm not going to just throw them into the story. I need to fold them in once I decide where they belong. Until then, I'm going to post them as one-shots.
> 
> So eventually, this particular chapter won't be part of It Might Have Happened Like That, but part of Relic itself. In other words, this is canon. It takes place shortly after Loki's powers are returned to him, but before they discover the first underground temple.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mild mentions of surgery, torture, and medical situations

**Bend and Break**

**(aka ** **Loki's Bad Back)**

The floor overhead shuddered. The moan of pain that followed was animalistic: part injured lion, part beached whale.

Cora imagined Loki _ could _ turn himself into whatever he wanted, and for a moment, she considered the possibility he actually had. The day had been long and she was too tired to filter out the thought, absurd as it was, but in her own defense, _ improbable _ did not exactly apply to Loki the same way it applied to everyone else.

No, he was _ probably not _ transmogrifying himself in her bedroom while he was supposed to be putting away boxes, but it still took Cora a full minute before she began entertaining the possibility that the God of Mischief had actually hurt himself.

“Loki?” She moved to the foot of the stairs, clenching her jaw and bracing herself. How would she even begin to care for an injured Asgardian? The length of time it took to hear any response was disconcerting.

“...I’m fine.”

Cora sighed. She could hear his pain in his thin attempt to disguise it.

Thor had just left to pick up takeaway for dinner, which meant she and Loki were on their own for the next half-hour or so. And that was...fine...but there were reasons why she had not followed Loki into her bedroom to help with the boxes. She was not remotely afraid to be alone with him, but lately her imagination had been playing a dangerous game. Now, her heart began its usual nonsense as she mounted the stairs.

Of course, Cora would have been lying if she claimed her stomach had not turned to knots as Thor closed the door behind him. It had been easier to ignore with Loki out of sight. As the light from her bedroom came into view, she filled with dread.

No, not dread. Everything except dread. And that was the problem.

Cora tried to focus on the possibility that he might have been flattened by a box.

“Loki?” She knocked on the door before pushing it open. There was indeed a box on its side, with papers spilled across the floor. Loki was standing. Or rather, he was bracing himself against the wall. His back was to her and he did not turn around. Judging by his stance, she guessed the pain was coming from around his right hip. His shoulders rose and fell as though it required effort to breathe.

She cringed at the sight, but how could a twenty-pound box of papers have been the Waterloo of an Asgardian prince?

“Everything all right?” Cora asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, but this time his voice was tinged with irritation, and Cora felt a wave of regret. He had been trying his best, most of the time, to be friendly, but his pride was a fragile thing and she had just called attention to something Loki probably wanted her to ignore. Cora could hardly blame him. She was much the same, though it wasn’t so much about her pride as it was...simply being so used to having no one else around.

“Just wanted to be sure,” she said, carefully, flighting her impulse to clean the papers so he wouldn’t attempt to do it himself. She turned to leave.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Cora paused. Glancing across her shoulder, she caught Loki’s eye as he offered a faint, forced smile, but one she was pretty sure he intended to be reassuring. It felt generous, coming from him.

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” she said.

“I’ll be right down.” But as Loki turned to regard her the slightest bit more, his right knee buckled. Cora caught everything: the unnatural arch of his back to counter the fall, the lightning bolt that flashed across his face. He cried out, this time through his teeth, as though he was still fighting to disguise it, or furious it was happening at all. It left his breathing ragged and raw.

Cora froze. Loki did not look at her as he walked off the spasm, but perhaps his eyes were squeezed too tightly shut to see anything at all. She watched, unsure of what to do, but she couldn’t convince herself to move, even for the sake of his pride.

And then, Loki whimpered. The sound shredded her.

“Can I get you something?” she blurted. “Ice?”

“What?”

“Or a heating pad,” she added quickly, before he could tell her to leave him alone, if that was what he intended to do. But Cora suspected _ very _much that this was not a new injury. Heat would be better, if he allowed her to help.

He hissed his way through a few more labored breaths, hunched over, staring at the floor. And then finally, with an air of defeat, he looked at her. “...Heat.”

His eyes were wet.

Cora hustled to the kitchen. The heating pad was stored in a cabinet alongside the spices, because it was filled with rice and lavender buds, and the air was dryer in here than in the bathroom. She threw it into the microwave and its floral scent filled the room.

When she returned to Loki, he had lowered himself to the floor at the foot of her bed. His long legs were stretched out before him, revealing gray socks with little black diamonds on them, which amused Cora more than it should have, given his situation, though his face appeared less pained.

He still winced as he held out his hands, expecting her to toss him the pad -- or bag, as the case was. She brought it to him instead. “My aim is terrible.” She didn’t want him diving for it. He gave the fragrant bag a sniff and she shrugged. “It’s from a health store.”

Loki nodded, though Cora was fairly certain the explanation was meaningless to him. He pressed it against his side. “It’s a few years old, this damned thing. Your box wasn’t the issue. It flares up now and then. An annoyance, really.”

“We all have those.”

“Don’t you heal instantaneously?”

“I still get tight muscles. In the cafe, I make the same motions over and over. It’s not great for my shoulders.”

He had a habit of forgetting that her healing ability did not preclude pain. She wondered if it was because Asgardians did not understand pain the way humans did -- which must have meant that his injury had been pretty severe.

Cora remembered something then. “Actually…”

She walked to her chest of drawers and pulled a small massage tool she had almost forgotten existed. It resembled a lime green octopus, with rubber balls where its arms ought to have been and a knob for a head. She switched it on and off to make sure it still worked, and turned to find Loki staring at her, with a dramatic tilt to his head and his lips pressed together. It took her a second to realize that he was stifling an amused smirk.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s for your back.”

“I said nothing.”

“It’s an octopus. Do you really think I would… It’s an _ octopus _.”

“Far be it for me to judge what you keep in your drawers,” he said, losing the fight against his grin, though he turned away at the same moment. Maybe the twisting was too much for him. Or maybe it had something to do with the color that rushed across his face.

Cora stole a fraction of time to collect herself, because her own cheeks had gone hot. When he looked at her like that, in that purely Loki way of his, it zapped her resolve to keep above water. But his impish grins weren’t the half of it. Loki could look as grave and as cold as the winter sky, and she felt drawn all the more. It was simply the way he noticed things, the way he noticed _ everything _. His depth, his candor, his penchant for calling out the absurd.

Even an octopus hidden inside a dresser drawer.

She did not know what it said about her that Loki could sweep her legs with no more than the fire behind his eyes. Cora wanted to believe her feet were firmly rooted, but lately she felt very untethered.

After a breath, she brought him the massage tool. He fiddled with it, switching it on and off a few times, wrinkling his brow. “I’ve never seen something like this before.”

“You just rub the general area where it hurts.” Cora forced the words, because there was no winning this conversation. He had every right to snicker at her, but when Loki lifted his eyes, he looked sincerely grateful.

“Ah,” he sounded, turning it on for good.

“You look like you’re feeling better already.”

“Resting for a while usually helps,” he said, adjusting his weight so he could better reach the spot. He was being uncharastically soft-spoken -- or perhaps not so uncharacteristically. Loki had a curious habit of being gentle at the most unexpected moments, though his eyes remained wary and sharp. “Really, it doesn’t cause me much trouble, but then I am lulled into a false sense of security.”

“What happened?”

Cora was not sure if the question had slipped out or if Loki had lulled her into a false security of his own, but it still surprised her when he answered the question. “A training accident.”

“It wasn’t Thor’s fault, was it?” She wrinkled her nose.

Loki looked as though he might laugh. His lips parted and a breath escaped, and then the twinkle in his eyes snuffed itself out. He shook his head. “No. No, not Thor.” He lapsed into silence as he adjusted his position again, switching arms. The discomfort registered on his face.

It was an awkward spot to reach and Cora highly, _ highly _doubted that Loki had ever sought his brother’s assistance for, say, a massage. She wondered if Thor knew. Loki was like an enormous walking knot, suffering in secret for fear of pity.

What he probably wanted was for her to leave him in peace. Cora ducked her head, signaling her exit. “I’ll leave you and _ the octopus _ alone,” she said, lowering her voice to sound as lascivious as possible, just to make him chuckle. Which he did.

“It is unfortunate that I cannot take those pills you humans use,” he said.

“Ibux?” said Cora, halting.

“My metabolism is too high.”

“Have you ever taken anything for it? Or...what is medicine like on Asgard?”

Loki took on that thousand-yard stare once more, and Cora wondered if she ought not have asked. His eyelids fluttered. “We have healers, but I was not able to see them in time. Or at all, actually. I was far from Asgard.”

“Healers?” It felt like a safe query. That he was keeping up the conversation puzzled her.

He lifted a shoulder, switching to the other arm yet again. He was struggling, but she knew better than to offer help. “Magical healing arts,” he explained.

“And they couldn’t do anything about it once you returned?”

He paused again. “No.”

Cora could not stop herself from doing the math. The circuits in her brain went to work without her bidding, which was often the case. Had he been injured during the attack in New York, the attack which _ he _had staged? The frigid, nauseating sensation of ice in her belly began curling through each limb. She hated how she had to continually remind herself of what Loki had done. She shouldn’t so easily forget. It wasn’t right.

Cora swallowed, discovering that her throat had gone so tense that it felt like ice, too. She forced a nod and Loki stared back. That was when the bubble burst, and she recalled that he had referred to the incident as a _ training accident _.

“It didn’t happen in New York,” he said bluntly.

“What?”

“It wasn’t New York,” he repeated. “It was before that.”

Cora felt the tension shift from her neck to her brow. “I wasn’t--”

“Yes, you were.”

She did not know why she had bothered to lie. And she wished she could wipe the blade-like smile from his face.

“You were debating with yourself about whether or not you were feeling compassion for your sworn enemy.” Loki was teasing her. He looked like a proud cat. He might as well have been purring. “How can I blame you?”

“You aren’t my sworn enemy,” she said, rolling her shoulders back. “My sworn enemy is Red Bull energy drinks.”

His lips parted with a bright laugh, interrupted by a wince of pain. “You know, you could just _ ask _ how I hurt my back,” he said.

“I assumed you’d prefer I didn’t pry.”

He drew a knee to his chest with an uncomfortable grunt. “It _ was _ a training accident, from a certain point of view. _ They _called it training...” His voice trailed off. Cora tilted her head. “Testing my mettle… curious how much I could take…”

Shit.

Her body recoiled at the thought of it, though she locked her knees to stay still. The fall from the Bifrost. Thanos. Sanctuary. Tales of torture. “You don’t have to,” she said.

Loki turned his attention to the floor. An enigmatic expression shaded his face. The smile was completely gone now. Guilt pricked at Cora. His torture did nothing to expunge what happened in New York, but his torture remained a cold hard fact. She didn’t know how to compare the two things, but they both existed simultaneously.

And Loki was becoming her friend, as surreal as that was. She could not pretend that he wasn’t flesh and blood in front her, sitting on her bedroom floor. They had walked side-by-side through dusty churches. They would be laughing over dinner together, once Thor returned.

Cora did not know what to think about anything concerning Loki and it was profoundly frustrating. Almost as frustrating as it was to watch him fiddle with the massager, as he switched hands again. “Oh, give me that,” she sighed.

“What?” The split second of unmitigated confusion that flew across Loki’s face was something Cora would think about fondly for a long time. She held out her hand; Loki cautiously placed the Octopus into it.

Cora knew she was tempting fate as she wedged herself behind him, pushing all but her most pragmatic thoughts into the deep, dark corner. Loki did not comment as he shifted to grant her room.

"Can you lean forward just a bit more?" she asked.

He did.

Without allowing time to second guess what she was going to do, Cora turned on the massage tool and pressed it just below Loki's right hip socket. His backside. She kept her eyes on the wall across from her until her vision started to blur.

Now, she had heard Loki laugh before, but the sound that escaped him was a high-pitched twitter. A bird-sound. She never imagined he could hit such notes. "Too much?" she asked, turning it back off.

"Must you go...so low?"

"Trust me. You think your problem is coming from up here. It's really from down here." She paused. "That didn't hurt, did it?"

"I wouldn't call it pain," he replied after a beat. Cora turned the octopus back on before Loki likened the sensation to anything else. This was purely science. Physiological science.

Cora shook her head at herself. Loki glanced over his shoulder as best he could without twisting too much. "Why do you believe the epicenter is there?" he asked.

"Pregnancy.”

Loki scowled.

"When you carry a weight like that, for months on end, it has a lingering effect. I had to learn a few things to undo that damage. Trust me, you are incredibly tight here. If you can loosen these muscles, you'll have fewer flare ups."

He hummed a low note. "Your healing ability was no help at all?"

Like a reflex, Cora met his eye. Why was it so difficult for Loki to grasp that she felt pain, just like everyone else -- just as _ he _did? Or...was there some other reasoning behind his questions? "It only seems to kick in when I'm in a life-threatening situation."

Loki lips were pressed together like a wire, but it could not have been more different from his earlier smile.

"It never cleared away my scar from Sophie's birth, either," she said.

"Scar?"

"I have a sizable scar from a cesarean section.” She paused. “I don't know if that's something that exists for Asgardians. You probably don’t call it the same thing, even if it does."

How did Allspeak work for things like that? Loki’s eyes had gone blank.

“It’s where they surgically remove the baby,” she said, gesturing to her stomach and taking a covert, steadying breath.

Loki blinked. "I did not realize."

"I don't mind that it's there, but it's not pleasant looking. They didn't worry about aesthetics then. They didn't plan on me surviving." She cleared her throat. “But I showed them, I guess.”

He turned away. A low rumble in his chest felt like words she could not hear. It wasn’t laughter.

Loki had a comparable scar. In the center of his chest. Cora had seen it once, accidentally, but he still had yet to say a word about it. He knew that she knew. She wondered if he would say anything now, but a few seconds ticked by and then a few more.

He shifted forward, away from her hands.

Cora switched off the massage tool.

"Thank you for showing me where I ought to focus. Which muscles, I mean." Loki reached for the end of her bedframe and pulled himself up.

"Of course," she heard herself replying.

"It does feel better."

She stood. She knew she could not force him to talk about the scar or the reasons why his back was such a mess, and truthfully, she doubted she had the stomach for the gory details. It was probably better if they left everything exactly where it was. Wiser.

"Here. You can have this." She held out the octopus.

"Can I? Your bedroom drawer companion?"

She dusted off her knees. Apparently, they were back to joking now. "Just make sure Thor knows what you're doing, in case he hears it buzzing in the next room."

He chuckled, but it did not quite reach his eyes. "Right."

She walked ahead of him, moving forward in a bit of a daze. It was as though there was a low cloud overhead, fogging her vision. She regretted bringing up the scar from Sophie’s birth, though she wished she could talk freely, now that someone knew. She had kept her daughter a secret for such a long time. Sophie deserved better. But what did she expect of Loki? That he would look at her with those piercing eyes and she would feel _ understood? _

“Cora?”

The octopus was still in his hands as she turned, and then he vanished it away. Her fingers tingled at her sides in the darkened hallway. She pressed them against the soft knit of her dress.

“I did not realize that your daughter’s birth was quite so traumatic,” he said. Cora was unsure how to reply. He scratched along his jawline. “Are you...healed from that? Aside from the scar.”

Slowly, she nodded. Again, it was the same question, but he _ had _to understand. It was impossible that he didn’t. Why did he keep asking?

“I’m not in any pain from it,” she said. Not the physical sort, anyway. It was her own hidden injury, though every now and again there was an emotional flare up.

Loki, too, nodded slowly, beginning his walk toward the door. “Life has a way of leaving its mark.” He reached for the lightswitch before Cora could read the expression on his face.

But she didn’t need to, because Cora suddenly felt the proverbial light bulb pop overhead. The questions about her pain were not born out of forgetfulness, but concern. He cared. And she was suddenly grateful for the darkness that shielded everything but the tremble in her voice, or it might have been too much for the both of them. “It does.”

She could sense him in the darkness, standing still. The air between them warmed. “But thank goodness for cheerful, vibrating octopi,” he said. “Otherwise, it would be insufferable.”

Cora snickered as she turned to start down the hall. “You’re terrible,” she lied.

“I know,” he said, trailing behind with an audible limp. When he spoke again, his voice was...soft. “Shall I be grateful for their kind owners, then?”

Cora swallowed. “If you like.”

“I...”

They had arrived at the staircase, now, and Cora did not know if she wanted to dive into the light or stay exactly where she was and allow Loki to catch up. When she stopped walking, so did he, and her mouth went dry. He was keeping his distance, and somehow that said far more than stealing the opportunity to reach for her. He had stopped the massage because it had become more than what was wise.

Her heart continued its dangerous game. Cora picked at the seam of her sweater dress, feeling overly hot all of a sudden, waiting for who knew what. Loki certainly was not going to move until she did.

There came a knock at the door. Thor didn’t have a key.

Cora glanced at Loki, knowing her exit had been granted, but she felt no relief at all. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now. She could see his tall form and his slim, angular face with clarity, and the reflection of light in his clear eyes.

His chest rose and fell.

Thor knocked again.

Cora descended the rest of the stairs and opened the door. What else could she do?

The aroma of lavender lingered the house for the remainder of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Please check out Relic if you haven't already. :)


	5. I Got Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By Request, from @diggerkaren over on Tumblr: "How about a side trip in the Relic universe - where Nebula and Rocket come to visit Thor.... Has Loki met Nebula before?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this takes place in the Relic universe, but Relic isn’t totally Infinity War or Endgame compliant, so I’ve taken a few liberties. Nebula has never met Thor, but Rocket still has. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I don’t think it’s going to hurt anyone’s brain too much.
> 
> As for where this takes place in the Relic timeline, I’d call it toward the end, if not totally afterward. No spoilers. And in an odd turn of events, it directly relates to the previous chapter Bend and Break.

**I Got Better**

As usual, they needed to make a side trip. “Needed” to make one. Nothing could ever be over and done when traveling with her sister’s friends. Rocket tried Nebula’s patience sometimes. There was always some item the small creature needed to buy (or steal) or a person he wanted to see (or rob). She did not care, not in any moralistic sense, but there was never anything quick about it and she hated wasting time.

They had been in New York for a day, dropping off equipment to Tony Stark. It was what they had come to do. It was a regular delivery, one they made every few months, in Rocket’s modified Class-M. Nebula did not typically come along, because she did not like Earth, but Rocket needed a co-pilot, and all of the capable members of their team were otherwise occupied. Not even the Flora Colossus had come along. He was  _ shedding leaves _ and  _ needed privacy _ . Nebula suspected that it was code for something and she did not want to know what.

It was her first time seeing Tony. Nebula was glad the man had lived. He seemed happy. He had a wife and child. She told the softer, organic parts of her brain not to think about what might have been, had she needed more oxygen and food while the two of them were adrift on the Benatar. Tony was fortunate to have been trapped with her, of all possible companions, although it would have been easier to survive had he been alone. Nebula could have lasted for months on her own, if she cared to go on that long. Tony had kept her alive in his own way.

She enjoyed hugging Tony and his family when they said hello and goodbye. She did not hug any of the other humans they encountered. Perhaps they thought it might offend her. They would not have been entirely wrong. No one dared to touch Rocket at all.

After one night of sleep, it was time to depart, but not for home. Unfortunately. They needed to make their  _ quick side trip _ first.

“Where is this Norway?” asked Nebula. “And is this absolutely necessary?”

“I just want to see how an old friend is doing,” said Rocket.

Nebula scowled. Rocket did not have old friends. He barely had new ones. They were similar that way, but she strapped into her seat without comment. Arguing was merely a waste of time on top of what was already going to be a waste of time.

And she hated wasting time.

* * *

Norway, as it turned out, was on the same planet as New York, to the east and slightly north. The flight was short, but the star Sol was straight overhead by the time they touched down. They landed in a remote field, at coordinates which Tony had given. It lay several miles from where Rocket’s  _ friend _ had been conducting...whatever it was he that was doing here. Apparently, this friend was not native to Earth. That he happened to be here at the same time was fortuitous, if only for the fact that it saved time. Nebula made peace with letting it play out. Interference would only lengthen their stay.

They had arranged to meet Rocket’s friend at a safe distance from the city, so as not to cause alarm. Earthlings were embarrassingly skittish. The field in which they landed was pocked with rocks and patches of snow. It was pretty, in a barren, naturalistic sort of way. There were mountains in every direction. It could not have been more different from New York. Nebula had not been aware that places like this still existed on Earth, unruined.

Rocket unfastened his flight restraints. “You coming?”

Nebula shrugged. Her intention was to stay inside and let Rocket take care of whatever this was on his own. “Is it necessary?”

He rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself, Friendly.”

Through the view-shield, she watched him march steadily through the field, frowning to herself. Sometimes, Nebula wished she was not the way that she was. Then again, someone would probably die if she allowed herself to become as easily distracted as the rest of them.

Rocket’s  _ friend _ was not alone when he appeared on the horizon. They were so far off that Nebula first mistook the figures for a ripple in the wind. She honed in on the pair with her artificial eye, curious as to what sort of deplorable miscreants Rocket considered his buddies. They were two males, Terran in appearance. Both were tall, nicely-built specimens. Nebula wondered if she wanted to say hello to them after all. Her remaining organic parts still appreciated the company of attractive people. One man had light hair, the other, black.

And he was familiar.

The black-haired one, fox-faced and angular and...

Her bald brow furrowed like a cabbage as she leaned closer to the view-shield and a chill rippled down her spine. Her organic parts, it seemed, could also still react to shock.

Nebula threw off her flight restraints and ran outside, tearing through the dead grass at full speed.

“You’re alive!” she cried out.

The black-haired man’s eyes sharpened on her while she was still far away. He leaped backward and, for a flash, appeared as though he might bolt, like he was laying eyes on a predator, which was fair enough.

The other man simply looked confused, as did Rocket, but he raised a hand to hold her off, positioning himself in the center of it all. He was ruddy and muscular and effortlessly in command.

Nebula halted. She did not blame the man for attempting to run, nor did she underestimate him. He was Asgardian. (Well, really he was Jotun, that was detail.) He was an Asgardian prince. But more importantly, he was one of the finest fighters she’d ever sparred against, if you could call her father’s predilections training. They were more...exercises in survival.

She had to stop calling Thanos that. Father. He was not her father, but it was habit.

“Loki?” She uttered his name cautiously, but she knew it was him. Those eyes were unforgettable, deep-set and haunted. She knew that he recognized her, too, the way that the harrowing memories of their time together splintered in his gaze like broken glass. The face that surrounded them was a little different. Older. His youth was utterly gone. When they met, he had almost looked like a boy.

Nebula wondered if her face would ever change, or would parts of her simply fall off as time passed? She tried to be pragmatic about such things, because what was the alternative? But that Loki had aged at all, that he was alive, that he was actually standing before her -- it was almost more than her brain, sharp as it was, could process.

How was this possible? Thanos had hunted Loki like a cat after the last mouse in the universe. And by the story he told after leaving the Asgardians behind, he might as well have come home with a tail between his teeth.

“Hey, you know Nebs?” This came from Rocket, who sounded more concerned than impatient for once. Slowly, Loki nodded.

“Norns…” breathed the other man -- the taller, thicker, fair-haired one. “She’s one of Thanos’s daughters, isn’t she?”

Nebula grit her teeth. The other man was Thor -- Nebula realized it all once. The other Asgardian prince…the older one...was he the Allfather now? Loki’s brother.

Thor had been a mark. He had been part of the reason why Thanos wanted to train Loki in the first place, rather than kill the poor boy straight away, when he first arrived at Sanctuary. It was surreal to see him on the flesh, standing before her. He looked so different than the person she had been shown, and nothing at all like Loki, but there was no reason to expect that he would.

What were the two of them doing in Norway?

Except for the fact that Asgard no longer existed.

Loki cleared his throat. He put on a smile, of all things, and returned to the group. “Forgive me for reacting as I did. Old habits.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said coolly.

Rocket snapped his fingers until everyone looked down. Being the size that he was, it was necessary for him to be rude to get attention -- or at least, that was his excuse. “Hey, I’m dying to know the story. Really, I am. But is there any chance we could catch up, I don’t know, indoors? And not in the middle of a frozen wasteland.”

Nebula was vaguely offended. She blinked at the mountains in the distance. It was beautiful here. But Thor waved a hand and ushered them forward. “Right. The portal is at the bottom of the hill.”

With a glance over his shoulder, Rocket jogged ahead. Nebula lingered, standing very still, as did Loki, as though he expected her to wait. “I was told you were dead,” she said. “Thanos told everyone about what happened on that ship.”

Loki’s eyelids fluttered. And then, with a wry smile, he patted his chest, proving how solid he was. “Surely, you think more highly of me than that.”

Nebula did not laugh. There was nothing funny about this.

He gestured that they ought to catch up. “I’ll explain once we get into town.”

* * *

The next few minutes of their journey would remain a blur in Nebula’s mind. Loki brought them through a portal, one which he may or may not have created himself. Passages through magical doorways did funny things to her non-organic parts. It never lasted very long, and she had only traveled using them a handful of times, but It always left her feeling staticky and dull until the effects faded. It was an annoyance, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

All she could recall was following everyone, like the runt of a litter, as the mountains transmuted to a seaside street, until her fleshy brain and cybernetics synced up with one another. With a jolt, Nebula realized that she was sitting in a hard chair, indoors. There was a table in front of her. There was a cup of something hot in her hand.

She tilted her head.

She was in...a coffee shop?

Two tables had been pushed together, around which, in addition to herself, Loki, Thor, and Rocket were seated. At the counter, a human man and woman were buying drinks. They finished, turned around, and offered polite smiles as they passed.

Nebula anxiously flexed her blue hands and vaguely recalled Loki saying something about casting a spell on her and Rocket, so that they would appear  _ Midgardian. _ Human. Apparently, it was not something she could see with her own eyes. Pity. She was curious what sort of disguise Loki would choose to paint on her.

But not curious enough to ask. The longer Nebula thought about it, the less she wanted to come face-to-face with a flesh-and-blood version of herself, free of the metal that held her together.

A bell jingled as the door closed. The woman behind the counter circled around and locked it. Apparently, she was an insider to their meeting. She was a woman of average height and build, for a human. She sat down next to Loki and Nebula noted the way he leaned ever so slightly into her presence at the table.

So, not only was Loki alive, but he was apparently doing well for himself. It still boggled her mind.

Though it did make her feel slightly less guilty for what had happened between them. That horrific moment. Involuntarily, she shivered. She hoped no one noticed.

“All right,” said Rocket, “now that we’re alone, time to tell the story.”

“There isn’t much to say, other than the obvious,” said Nebula. She lifted her coffee to her lips and took a sip and hoped no one had noticed just how dazed she had been seconds ago. “We trained together. Briefly. All of Thanos’s children did.”

It was not the whole truth. That wasn’t hers to tell his people.

Across from her, Loki lifted his heavy brows, but he did not comment. Rocket shifted in his chair, trying to get a little more height at the table. “Right,” he said, “but training with you was top of the class, wasn’t it, Nebs?”

Was that a compliment? She shrugged. “Thanos wanted Loki trained quickly.”

“I think I learned more from you than a thousand years on Asgard,” said Loki. She noted a tightening of his throat, as well as his fist around his drink. He looked to be drinking tea, not coffee.

Nebula remembered pitying him when he’d first arrived, even though there had been no logical reason to care about a fallen Asgardian prince. Pity was a dangerous thing. She knew that far too well. “But how are you still alive?”

Whatever was left of Loki’s thin smile vanished, like a shadow blotting out a little sliver of sun. The woman beside Loki turned ashen, as well. Nebula wondered if she had been given her name. She did not remember.

With gravity, Loki turned his eyes upon his brother.

Thor shifted his weight against his seat. “I brought him back using magic, I suppose you could say.”

Nebula lifted her brows, or what sufficed for them on her face.

“And not to forget,” said Loki, “there are times when one benefits from having a sister who guards the gates of Hel.”

“So you  _ were _ dead?” Nebula asked.

“I got better.”

Everyone chuckled. Everyone except her. She did not understand why they laughed.

But she was not one of them. And they were not her. And they had not been there the day Thanos shipped her off to Ronan. Only Loki had been there. Only Loki knew.

So why did he laugh, too?

Her organic parts felt numb.

* * *

Nebula never finished her coffee. She’d never cared for the drink all that much. Mild stimulants were fairly useless. What she really wanted was strong alcohol, but it was clear she wasn’t going to be offered any. Rocket had a supply on the ship. She would help herself to it later. He would get pissed off, but he wouldn’t get in her way.

She didn’t divorce herself from the rest of the conversation, not completely; she tried her best to focus. She was good at that, focusing on two things at once; the others probably couldn’t tell that her mind was elsewhere. She suspected Loki could tell, though. His mind was probably stuck on the same thing as hers. 

His eyes were glassy.

It was Rocket who rose first, signalling their exit. He was satisfied to hear that Thor was doing well. Nebula did not fully understand his concern, and she assumed she would never hear the full story. Once they left, Rocket would move on to other things and so would she. Thor seemed well enough, aside the missing eye. She knew what that was like.

Rocket tried to make a trade for the eye, but Thor didn’t accept.

Rocket was disgusting sometimes. Nebula didn’t know why she enjoyed traveling with him so much, except that he was the least idiotic member of their little crew. Except for her sister, of course, but that was a given.

She pushed her mug aside and stood. Good-byes were said. Thor hugged Rocket, which was a sight to behold. Maybe the little beast was a niche interest.

No one hugged her, not even Loki, though she hadn’t expected he would. They weren’t old friends; they had briefly been in the same place at the same time. Nebula dipped her head in a formal farewell. Chances were slim they would ever run into one another again. “It was good to see you,” she said.

Loki bowed. Stiffly. When he rose, his face was drawn, and he looked somehow older still. He lifted his eyes over Nebula’s shoulder, to the door, through the tiny window. “Actually, would you mind if we spoke in private? Just for a minute.”

Nebula blinked. She did not want to waste time. She glanced over her shoulder at Rocket and Thor, still chatting outside. Laughing loudly. She wondered what on earth Loki was doing to shield his non-human appearance, because Thor was still looking at the ground when they spoke. Was Rocket playing the role of a foul-mouthed child?

The blond woman whispered something in Loki’s ear and shuffled outside. Their eyes met. The door shifted into its latch with a click and Loki locked his hands behind his back. She remembered that stance and how his limbs went rigid when he was frightened. Was he frightened now? What did he intend to say?

Nebula tilted her weight from hip to hip. “Your woman seems nice,” she said.

Loki made a funny sound, losing some, but hardly all, of the tension in his jaw. “I’ll tell her you said so.”

He stared at her, then, taking too much time. Slowly, he drew a breath in and out of his nostrils. Nebula’s chest tightened. 

“I wanted to say thank you,” he said. Nebula felt the floor tilt beneath her feet. Thank her? For what? The corners of Loki’s mouth twitched, as though he had felt the little earthquake himself. “You’re surprised.”

“I…” Nebula opened her mouth to discover it had gone dry. She tried to clear her throat. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

The image of Loki suddenly wavered before her, like water over a pane of glass. “I…”

“You could have finished me off,” he said.

“Your back was broken.” She sent it bluntly, like she was finding her voice, like it was an excuse. It was. But Nebula had never spared anyone else during Thanos’s training sessions.

Loki unclenched his hands long enough to massage his right hip. The fated moment flashed in her mind, not for the first time today. His blood curdling scream, his bent body.

“I was the one who broke it,” she said.

Loki shrugged, as though he disagreed, somehow. “I tripped.”

“Hardly.” She swallowed, and then she whispered. “But it was not intentional.”

“I know. Just as I know you could have finished me then and there, but chose not to. You could have impressed your father. I’m sorry. Thano--” Loki’s voice wavered before grinding to a halt. His Adam’s apple lifted high and fell.

“He was not my father,” she said quickly. “And nothing I ever did impressed him, anyway.”

Loki nodded, his eyes taking on a far-away glint. He blinked and it vanished, like one of the tricks that he’d shown off before every playful impulse had been beaten out of him at Sanctuary.

What happened that day felt as though it had taken place in another lifetime, but it had not been so long ago. Still, it seemed like someone else’s life that she’d been living, a person without freedom, without control over her own mind. She had jobs to do; occasionally training her father’s latest acquisitions was one of those jobs.

She’d been fucking fed up with it. She’d known all about Thor and about Odin, or as much as Thanos had wanted her to know. She'd known Loki was the younger brother of the future Allfather, the son of the current Allfather -- and she'd known he was no Asgardian.

She'd had every intention of proving that.

Loki’d spoken of impressing Thanos, but he’d gotten it completely backward. She was sick of the game, sick of her father, sick to death of herself. What was Loki to her, but the latest in a long, long line of challengers to her fly-speck of a purpose in this damned galaxy? Another thorn in what remained of her hide. He was a threat. Nothing but a threat.

He’d proven a more worthy opponent than his meager, hungry look suggested, but Nebula underestimated no one. She remembered it was raining that day. Thanos preferred they train in real conditions, real settings. He obsessed on being one with nature, which was why it was such cruel punishment to cut her up after every failure and, piece by piece, slowly turn her into a machine.

If she killed Loki, she would at least be spared  _ that.  _ For only a day, perhaps, but her life was a day-by-day existence, minute-by-minute. She numbered her small victories and her even smaller rewards.

Loki tripped that day, but in reality, the water-logged ground beneath him had given way. The earth swallowed him. The fall alone should have been his end. Perhaps he would have been luckier to die, but Nebula suspected the man had never possessed a lot of that. Luck. Neither had she. People like them scraped through life without luck.

The sound that erupted from his twisted body was the most agonizing noise she had ever heard, minus her own screams, when Thanos spliced her into pieces.

He never bothered to dull the pain. He always made sure it hurt, that it was flame and agony. He made sure everyone heard her scream until she begged for release. Until he was satisfied that everyone knew that the Mad Titan could make a machine weep real tears.

Nebula remembered tearing down the wet hill, over the rocks, through the mud. She’d been shocked to see that Loki was still alive, but he was a retching, shivering, gnarled mess. She remembered her hands shaking just as much as she stupidly reached for him. Stupid, stupid girl! She remembered the blood and snot and mud slapped across his youthful face.

Her heart exploded. And then came the frigid snap of numbness, shock, and disbelief.

Loki was  _ nothing _ to her, nothing except a threat. Thanos had plans for him, plans he did not have for her. She ought to have ended Loki, thwart her father and remain blameless, because it was her job to weed out the weak.

Loki was nothing. Nothing.

The poor boy was nothing...

Nebula recalled the shouting of her father’s footsoldiers in the distance, racing toward them to assay the damage. Loki drew a sharp breath and held it, lifting his eyes, not blinking as the rain pelted them.

He knew. He knew he was nothing to her, to anyone. He was a prince who would never be a king, a son without a father, without a family, and now he was physically broken. Nebula had every right and reason to put him out of his misery. He wanted her to do it.

But it was too late. Loki had already become  _ something  _ to her.

She could not kill him.

That night, her father tore out what little flesh still remained in her left hand.

Loki went on to do terrible things. So had she.

There were years behind them, now. Thanos had bragged about finally catching the younger Asgardian prince. She’d made peace with his death, because what else could she do, but apparently Loki had more luck that she realized. If she had not spared him that day, perhaps his brother never would have been able to ultimately revive him.

And now, as she stared at his gently lined face in a Norwegian coffee shop, she was happy to see that he’d had the opportunity to leave his youth behind.

“I wish you safe travels,” said Loki, “wherever you’re off to next.”

“Back… Back to where my sister is.” Nebula dipped her head, bowing her farewell and blinking quickly, before she teared up. It wreaked havoc on her cybernetic parts. “What happened to Asgard was...unfortunate. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well, I have my brother. Sometimes that’s all the home you get.”

Nebula almost laughed. She turned toward the door. “How is your back, by the way?”

“Honestly, it was never quite the same, but it could have been far worse.”

She nodded. “Yes. It could have been much worse.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are precious. Please leave me some!! Haha.


End file.
